I have worked out how to change the apature & shutter speed.. but i have a question

On the screen, even in auto mode, there is a scale which goes -2 1 0 1 2+. I am able to change the little arrow above this scale but I cant work out what it is for, i have to press a button with AV next to it to change the setting . is it possibly the ISO setting, but i thought the numbers were different to this? Also I was under the impression i was only able to change the ISO in M and P mode on the camera?

That's the exposure compensation scale which lets you deliberately under or over exposure. A setting of -1 will halve the exposure and a setting of +1 will double it. After playing with it though, always return the setting to 0 afterwards!

We'll have some tutorials on this soon, but in the meantime, it will be covered in your manual...

Hi tobywuk. I set exposure compensation after I've set up everything else, and I usually set it at 0. That is, I set ISO for the kind of action I'm shooting or the lighting of the sceen. Then I set the aperture (f/) to complement the lens I'm using or the depth of field I prefer. Then I frame my shot and look at the exposure compensation scale (what you are looking at) and if the arrow is on the plus side, I adjust my shutter release time until the arrow is at 0 (or adjust the shutter speed the other way if exposure is on the negative side). Sometimes different conditions require a shift to one side of the scale. Also, some camera models take better pictures when adjusted slightly away from 0. And, you may want to experiment with slightly lighter or darker pictures. There are many ways to set up your camera, modes to shoot in, etc., and the exposure compensation scale will help you get well balanced pictures from all of them.